Ask Millie
Field Guide No. 01 · A day out
Marysville, the slow way.
Maroondah to Marysville through the Black Spur. Mountain ash, mist, and a long lunch.
Leave by eight. Take the long road.
Why the road is the point
Two hours north-east, and most of us drive it without looking.
Marysville is the destination on the sign. The day is built around the road that gets you there: the Black Spur is one of the most beautiful stretches of bitumen in the country, and we drive it three times a decade without thinking.
Leave by eight. There is a window of about ninety minutes when the Maroondah Highway is empty and the morning fog has not lifted off the trees yet, and that is the window the whole day hangs on. Pack a jacket. Bring a thermos. Do not book lunch; Marysville will sort that out when you get there.
This guide covers the route, three stops worth the detour, and the small considered things that turn a drive into a day. It is the same plan we ran ourselves on the 23rd of May. The photos are from that morning. The route crosses Wurundjeri and Taungurung Country.
Autumn is when the road looks like the photographs, but the day works year round and spring has its own case: the ranges are green, the falls are running after winter, and the Spur is quieter on a weekday than it ever is in May. Two things change from about September onward. Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens and the other Parks Victoria gardens close on days rated Extreme or Catastrophic fire danger, so check the rating before you drive; and the last weekend of September is a public holiday long weekend, which puts a great deal of motorcycle and weekend traffic on the Spur.
Start at eight. Take the long road.
- 8:00Leave MelbourneEastern Freeway out, then the Maroondah Highway through the hills. Sixty-eight kilometres of warm-up.
- 9:30Maroondah ReservoirWalk the dam wall, then ten quiet minutes in the picnic ground below. A weekday beats a Sunday.
- 11:00The Black SpurThirty-two kilometres between Healesville and Narbethong. Mountain ash, ferns, the whole show.
- 1:30MarysvilleBakery first. Then Steavenson Falls or the gardens. The town is small; it does not need a plan.
- 3:30The Sherbrooke detourForty minutes added to the drive home for Alfred Nicholas Gardens. Worth every one.
- 6:00HomeBefore the light goes. Wet shoes, no regrets.
Maroondah Reservoir
The wall does the announcing.
The reservoir was built in 1927 and the dam wall does most of the talking. You park at the top, walk along it, and the whole Yarra Ranges arranges itself below you. It is a ten-minute stop you can stretch to forty if the weather is right.
The picnic ground beneath the wall is the part most people miss. A long table, a small creek, and on a weekday morning it is empty enough to feel like a private garden. Bring the thermos. Do not rush the second coffee.
The Black Spur
Second gear in the wet.
The Spur is thirty-two kilometres of the Maroondah Highway between Healesville and Narbethong. The trees are Eucalyptus regnans, mountain ash, some of the tallest flowering plants on earth, and the road bends through them in the kind of slow curves you wind the windows down for.
It rains here when Melbourne is dry. Drive in second gear on the wet sections; the corners tighten more than they look. Pull over at one of the marked lay-bys. Twice, if you can. The bikes know the road better than the cars do, and you should let them past.
Alfred Nicholas Gardens
On the way home.
The Sherbrooke detour adds forty minutes to the drive back. It is worth them. The gardens belong to a 1929 house that no longer stands; what remains is an English-style sweep of lawns down to a boathouse and lake, with paths of cut stone that hold the rain.
Walk down to the boathouse. Sit on the steps for ten minutes. Walk back up. The fog is a feature, not a problem.
Leave by eight. Take the long road.
Three things, before you go
Go in autumn
The colour does most of the work. Earlier and the canopy is still green; later and the leaves have gone. Mid-May to early June is the window.
Plan an autumn drivePack for the ranges
It rains up there when Melbourne is dry. A jacket, a thermos, shoes you do not mind muddying. The ranges run their own weather system.
Check the forecast up thereDo not rush it
The Spur is the point of the day, not the obstacle. Nine hours, not five. Pull over twice. You will not be back this way for months.
Make it a whole dayWant a day like this without the planning?
Quiet day out of Melbourne, mountains, a long lunch. Tell me the date and who’s coming and I’ll time the drive around the light.
